Being Lara (13 page)

“What is this?” he asked pointing to her copy of
Great Expectations.

“It is a lovely book.”

He slipped out of his agbada and trousers and into the covers.

“No, I meant this,” he said, pointing to the dictionary on the bedside table.

“Oh…”

“You are always reading it. It is not a novel,” he said vaguely, as if it were an afterthought.

“It contains words I can learn. Of English. I have to do something while you are away at night.” She'd meant it to come out witty, nonchalant even, but knew from Chief's accompanying look that it hadn't.

“Don't be jealous, my wife. Iyabo is also my wife and you know I must visit with her, my other wives, and my children from time to time. If it were the olden days, all four of you would be in one house. How would you have liked that, eh?” He smiled that wide and unattractive smile to reveal a set of yellowing teeth. Mama always said that good teeth on a man signaled brilliance. Henry had good teeth.

“I am fine, Chief. All is well. It is well,” she said, placing the novel on top of the dictionary and turning away from him.

Yomi occupied herself with assisting the house girl with chores and cooking, entertaining important guests, and reading as much as she could. She'd read with an intensity that felt like Henry was willing her along, pushing her to gain as much knowledge of the world as she could. Yomi felt as if memorizing the entire contents of the dictionary would make him proud of her, wherever he was. She would often wonder what he was doing, if he too had married. Sometimes the pain was so raw, other times less so. But still, she thought of Henry, her lost love, daily and of course each time she opened the pages of her precious dictionary.

One morning, Yomi awoke to the sound of raised voices and banging.

“Chief, Chief!”

The electricity had disappeared in the middle of the night, taking the inadequate warm breeze of the ceiling fan with it. Yomi had stripped off her clothes due to the heat, safe in the knowledge that Chief was out for yet another night.

“CHIEF!” came the voice again, this time more frantic. She grabbed a wrapper, flinging it around her body, and raced to confront the commotion.

“What is it?” she asked the small group of men who'd gathered outside the gates.

“Sorry to bother you, Ma, but we have emergency!” said one of the men.

Yomi thought of her parents and siblings. “What is wrong?”

“The chief's daughter Abimbola is very sick. We must take him to her!”

The energy around her felt frantic. She wasn't sure what to say, what information to offer them. She hadn't seen her husband since last night, and he was more than likely visiting with Iyabo.

“Have you tried Chief's wife Iyabo?”

“We have been to all the wives, Ma, and he is not there. What shall we do? She is very, very sick.”

Abimbola lived on the next street with her husband. Yomi had not spent much time with her, but what she did know was that Chief was very proud of her achievements as a law graduate.

“What do we do, Ma?”

Yomi felt a wave of helplessness descend on her, and she suddenly longed to be in her bedroom, reading a novel, a glass of cool water by her side.

She dressed and joined in the search for Chief, who was finally found three miles away, visiting land for potential development, but by which time it was too late. His second child by his first wife, Taiwo, had died aged twenty-five. No one knew what had caused Abimbola's sudden death, but the street was abuzz with theories about Iyabo and her supposed quest to kill off Chief's entire brood in order to keep any future inheritance for her children.

Yomi mulled over the tragic events with Mama.

“Everything will be okay. Just continue to be a good wife to Chief and soon you will have your own child.”

Yomi felt a strong chill at that prospect. She was aware that within her marriage she must produce a child, preferably a boy first, but the reality of it had never really touched her until Mama said it. Now, the responsibility that possibility carried was great, and she wasn't sure if she'd be able to cope with it all.

“So soon after Abimbola, Mama?”

“Nonsense! This is just what Chief needs after his terrible loss. You need it, too. There is nothing better than becoming a mother, nothing,” said Mama, with such passion that Yomi was willing to believe it. Besides, Mama was right, it was her duty as a wife. And perhaps with the chief's baby inside her, she'd finally be set free from any further romantic thoughts of Henry, her lost Romeo, her Mr. Darcy, coming back to claim her.

Chief seemed to age ten years in the months after Abimbola's death. He and Yomi hardly spoke; their contact in bed, nonexistent. Yomi spent her days running the house efficiently, paying the house boy and house girl when Chief forgot to, cooking for her husband's younger children and Abimbola's mother. She hadn't much to fill her days and what was worse, she'd finished all the novels she owned and reread them each at least once—except
Great Expectations,
which she'd read and enjoyed three times. She'd also exhausted her vocabulary with words from the dictionary—its presence in her life more to do with having a piece of Henry with her at all times. It was her emotional crutch within a very, very lonely marriage.

Yomi enjoyed going back home though. A short walk across Ogunlade Street to spend time with her siblings and Mama as Daddy snoozed in his large chair in front of the radio—now free to dream instead of enduring the constant threat of homelessness. She had to keep reminding herself that marrying the chief had been worth it for that alone.

After a huge plate of Mama's amazing pounded yam and efo, Yomi helped Ola clear away the dishes as Mama stood over them, hands on hips.

“Time for you to go back home; your husband needs you,” said Mama.

Yomi's heart sank. “I know, Mama, but he never wants to sit with me. He is always out. More than before. It is like he cannot bear to look at me.”

“In time, it will pass. He is in pain. It is unnatural to lose a child. It is all so wrong.”

“Yes, Ma,” she said.

Yomi and Ola hugged tightly before Ola shut the gate behind her. As Yomi ventured up the familiar Ogunlade Street, the path of her childhood and now bearing her very own surname, she felt as always, like she was leaving a part of herself behind.

Then she saw Henry Bibimsola.

Seeing Henry again, if only for one day, after all that had passed was hard, heartfelt, but totally necessary—like it had been scripted from a novel. Yomi would finally be allowed the chance to say good-bye properly and not just via a crumpled note and an old dictionary. She'd finally have her moment. Instead, seeing him brought back a mass of emotions. An amazing rush at first sight. A crushing blow when he said good-bye yet again. But instead of absorbing this negatively, Yomi directed her energy onto a new sense of purpose, with something shifting, as if a skin had been shed and she was now free to become someone new.

So that very night, Yomi did as Mama had suggested and started to repair her marriage.

No longer content to just sit idly by while her married life with Chief fell apart before it had a chance to begin, Yomi felt she owed it to her family and to
herself
to make it work.

So a few weeks after saying good-bye to Henry for the second time in her life, Yomi entered her home and immediately ordered the house girl out of her kitchen. She could not be sure he'd be home that night but she'd risk preparing Chief's favorite meal, hoping he would eat it fresh. Cow foot,
ẹ
bà, soup, fresh corns, full bottle of palm wine—everything lovingly prepared for her husband's arrival. Indeed, when Chief arrived that night, his face was quickly transformed with a type of smile she'd never before noticed on his face. He looked almost handsome.

“Yomi, what is all this?” Chief never ventured into the kitchen, but Yomi believed the sweet-smelling aroma of her soup had led him inside.

“All for you, my husband,” she said.

“Very good,” he said approvingly, and for the first time, Yomi allowed herself to receive his compliment and not just store it away in an unmarked box, as she had done many times in the past.

That evening, Yomi and her husband spoke. Not weak gossip about their neighbors or family matters as usual, but sensitive issues, with the chief really opening up about the loss of Abimbola and his plans for his business. For the first time in their young marriage, Yomi truly felt like a wife.

That night, she lay with her husband the way a wife should. As Chief lay spent in postcoital bliss, Yomi picked up her dictionary and headed outside. Their home with its accompanying compound was easily the largest in the street, perhaps even the whole area, and their garden patch alone could fit two extra sets of living quarters. Yomi picked up an oil lamp and kept on walking, the bottom of her wrapper flowing as she headed toward the far end of the grounds.

“Ma, is that you?” asked one of the security men, Benson, flashing his lamp in her face.

“Yes, it is. Are you okay?”

“Yes, Ma. Can I assist you with anything?”

“Yes, Benson. Make a small fire, just here.”

“Ma, we will be burning things tomorrow; I can take now what you need to burn.”

“No!” she snapped unintentionally.

“Okay, Ma.”

“I would like to burn some things now, please. Okay?”

Within minutes, a small fire was ablaze on the charred pile of one that had been started days earlier. The staff often burned dead plants and bits of trees if and when they needed to, so the sight of a fire in the far end of the chief's grounds was nothing unfamiliar—except perhaps that it was lit so late at night.

When Benson turned his back, Yomi brushed her mouth against the cover of the dictionary, opening it up to the inscription and placing it to her chest as if comforting an infant. She ran her finger over the words and glanced at the page for one last time, before gently placing it on top of the burning pile and witnessing the last moments of her beloved dictionary as it warped and melted in front of her very eyes.

For My Yomi.

Yomi achieved a level of happiness that, although it felt incomplete, was happiness nevertheless. Chief was at home more now, and she found her time filled adequately with every aspect of her family. Of course, she'd long since
accepted
the presence of Chief's children, but now she openly welcomed them. His wives she could very much do without, though, especially Iyabo, as Yomi always felt an onset of nauseating unease in her presence, like a dark cloud descending over a sunny horizon.

“Yomi,” said Iyabo one day as she walked into the house that up until two years ago she'd shared with Chief.

“Ma, how are you?” asked Yomi courteously.

“Where is Chief?”

“He is working, Ma.”

“Good, because it is you I have come to see.”

Iyabo sat her tiny yet angry frame on one of the large chairs as Yomi sent the house girl for drinks.

“How can I help you?” she asked uneasily as Iyabo's eyebrows shot up and then her eyelids flickered shut and opened with a quick start.

“It is I who described these chairs to the carpenter to make. It is I who should rightly still be living here.”

In a mixture of Yoruba and English she went on. “I have been patient, but I am patient no more! I want you and any offspring you may bear to leave this house! You have no business with my husband or his money. You will go!”

“Get out of my house, Jare!” shouted Yomi. Gone was the respect she had afforded Chief's wife. She'd been silent for long enough herself, mute in a marriage she had not wanted. But things had changed now. Yomi had finally found her previously dormant voice, and she intended to use it to express her true feelings. She wanted this marriage and she wanted this life!

“Get out of my house!” she reiterated confidently, placing her hands on Iyabo's back and guiding her through the door as the house girl stood by in shock, clutching two long bottles of Coke.

Iyabo turned to her, eyes squinted. “So, the bush rat has finally spoken,” she remarked. “I will go … for now. But remember what happened to Abimbola and remember this…”

Yomi's heart skipped a beat.

“You and any child you have will never be safe!”

Iyabo walked out of the house, laughing in a voice that, to Yomi, sounded evil, as the house girl asked her if she was okay.

“I am well,” said Yomi, her voice loaded with uncertainty. “It is well.”

Yomi stood over Mama, plaiting the last strands of her hair.

“Thank you, child,” said Mama as Yomi placed the head tie securely around Mama's head.

“You will soon be plaiting your own child's hair, regardless of the rumors that woman Iyabo has spread in the past.”

“Amen,” replied Yomi.

“I can see it has already happened,” said Mama.